LEXINGTON, KY — The Lexington Opera House, which opened in grand style in 1887, then fell into disrepair, was saved from the wrecking ball in 1976 and purchased by the city. Even so, after more than three decades, it was due for an audio upgrade. The venue’s technical coordination team chose a new L-Acoustics Kudo line source array system for the 944-seat venue.
Before its slide into decline as a movie house, the venue had staged live performances by Al Jolson, John Phillip Sousa, W.C. Fields, Harry Houdini, Will Rogers, Mae West and the Marx Brothers. The opulent venue was fully renovated and restored after its purchase by the city in 1976, but still required a few much-needed updates more than three decades later.
Following a comprehensive onsite evaluation of six leading manufacturers' loudspeakers, the opera house's technical coordination team, including Andrew Gilchrest, Michael Lavin and Chris Musinski, opted ot have the Kudo system installed.
The system includes six flown loudspeakers and three ground-stacked units. Four coaxial 8XT enclosures are positioned across the stage lip for front-fill, with a single 115XT HiQ positioned up at the center of the proscenium as an alternate front-fill for ballet performances requiring the stage to be speaker-free. Furthermore, a full L-Acoustics monitor package was also specified for the stage, featuring eight 12XT and four 115XT HiQ enclosures. As for power, the Kudo systems are driven by the manufacturer's LA8 amplified controllers, with everything else powered by LA4.
"When looking to design a new sound system for the opera house, we had a couple of stipulations," said Gilchrest. "First, since a quarter of our audience is under one of two balconies, we wanted to avoid using under-balcony delay speakers. L-Acoustics helped design a system, through the use of ground-stacked and flown cabinets, that accomplishes this nicely. Everyone is hearing sound coming directly from the stage.
"Second, we really lack the physical space for subs, so we wanted an enclosure that would eliminate their need for most of the shows we do here,” Gilchrest added. “So far, including concerts with a full band, we have yet to require any additional low-end supplementation. It's really impressive."
L-Acoustics’ Kudo was suited for both criteria. By adjusting each enclosure's internal K-Louvers to minimize reflections and best fit the geometry of the room, the flown Kudo arrays are now providing coverage throughout the balcony seating areas while the ground-stacked enclosures do likewise for the main floor. Furthermore, considering that the frequency response of Kudo very effectively goes down to 50 Hz (±3 dB), the opera house is able to deliver sufficient low-frequency reinforcement without the need for any dedicated subwoofer enclosures.
"Everyone loves the new system; it's such a big improvement from what we had," said Gilchrest. "We're loading in a Broadway musical today that is going to use our hanging Kudo for the two balconies. This makes it easier on everyone. The traveling crew doesn't have to set up as much, our crew doesn't have to take down our speakers, and it helps the show look a lot better, eliminating the need for the musical's speaker towers–not to mention, of course, that the Kudo sound much better and deliver much more even coverage."
Although the University of Kentucky Opera was, appropriately enough, the first group to make use of the new sound system, the Kudo rig has since been utilized on concerts by both Bryan Adams and Jodi Messina to national Broadway tours of The Pajama Game, Sweeney Todd and Ain't Misbehavin', all garnering considerable praise from patrons and production companies alike.
The Lexington Opera House is a part of Lexington Center Corporation, which also operates the 23,000-seat Rupp Arena, 130,000-square-foot Lexington Convention Center, the Shops at Lexington Center and Triangle Park.
For more information, please visit www.l-acoustics.com.
